WilliamPS

Well this explains the different journos takes - depends on who he briefed them. In summary, PL position is the rules were confirmed but with a bit of a tidy up on loans and speed at which things are done City position is the rules were unlawful due to the loans and speed stuff and are therefore entirely null and void. Pretty big difference! If City are right then get the Saudis on the phone and get the deals done before new rules come in, they can’t be retroactive (as Chelsea showed with the 8 year contracts trick)

For loans they would just get quotes from banks at market rates. It really wouldn’t be a big deal. Banks already do this for big corporate clients that need to show arms length terms for internal loans to meet transfer pricing requirements.

No, he could do a dividend to release equity which doesn’t touch the club ownership The reasons for loans is it’s more tax efficient for him personally, as this would incur tax.

They will need to put them in the accounts at market interest rates for the purposes of PSR, That will be about 6%, so a £200m interest free loan from an owner will incur a PSR cost of £12m a season, as a crude example, basically the cost of a £40m player paid £80k a week

The issue is the numbers, Man City, Newcastle, Everton, Forrest and Leicester will be against any new rules that are legally compliant. The PL will need 14 votes to get their way, unless some clubs abstain. That means 3 more clubs have to be against. Villa are one potentially, Chelsea another. Who is the third

Brighton will be fine, they have huge PSR headroom due to their transfers and the loans are to their owner so he’s no incentive to call them in and put his own club out of business.

This is pretty incredible given what went before

Not really. He runs assets on behalf of Jamie Reuben, NUFC is an asset part owned by Jamie Reuben. With Staveley gone the Board was maybe a bit light on numbers.

It is a bit different with a striker though. Defenders and midfielders need to know their role in the system, but in the last 10 minutes of a game they were dominating you aren’t looking for the striker to do a lot tactically when the team is out of possession, you just want him to get on the end of something.

The club spent £15m on Osula in the sunmer, that’s 3x what selling Wilson would generate. Not like his injury record was a total mystery when Osula joined, so not sure how Wilson can get stick for the lack of options.

Spurs have a concrete concourse that’s goes all the way outside, then two areas at each end where they do the security checks before you go up the stairs to the concourse, it’s a different shape but the footprint of spurs stadium is massively larger than just the stands

With a new stadium the surrounding areas will have a ring around it, like the emirates, spurs, coms, Olympic stadium etc. The security and safety expectations are much higher and so the land area needed will be much bigger then the pitch and stands footprint

He might just be back to running/sprinting on grass, I.e. a long way from full contact training and even longer from match fit

If he obeyed team instructions (I remember Cabaye screaming at him, to zero effect), turned up on time, yada yada yada he wouldn’t have ended up at Mike Ashley’s Newcastle. Course he was a nightmare, that’s why his career went the way it did. The managers he had were the ones who would sign him. Rafa for example wouldn’t have touched him, Rafa played Dirk Kuyt in the same position! But it meant he rocked up at Newcastle, and you got to watch him instead of some journeyman for a few seasons.

I do think there’s quite a big difference between maximising revenue for the club and maximising number of fans in the ground. They are related but not the same. One option that would satisfy everyone pretty much would be a big extension of the east stand. Is there really no chance of demolishing the listed buildings? It’s not like they are especially unique, there are plenty of other similiar streets. Liverpool gave up world heritage status to allow Everton’s stadium. Knock them down or incorporate them into an enlarged stand.

We had the other end of the ground so a lot of fans never went near Wembley way or Baker St

Agree, the draw away at Bournemouth and losing to Fulham are poor results given the season aims and the quality at the top of the table this season. Got to look to win this one

The squad is still wafer thin. Without Longstaff, who is proven as a competent PL cm there is only Joelinton, Bruno, Willock, Tonali with Miley coming through. with 433 Howe typically uses 5 CMs every game, so the squad needs 6 ideally 7 CMs to have any injury or suspension cover. so do you really want to buy a backup CM next summer and take that budget away from CB and RW? Good chance anyone who comes in to replace him will be a similiar level, as the offer and budget is come be a backup. Lo ngstaff has only played so much as Tonali got himself a season long suspension He may want to leave given the toxic element of the fan base is targeting him every game and he could go elsewhere and start. There’s a few players who got grief at Newcastle but had decent careers elsewhere, be the next Dan Gosling. But if he goes you can chop £10m off the budget for RW and CB to replace him.

If a new build is twice the price, and so at least £800m more on those costings it is going to have to deliver a lot more revenue than the rebuild to make it worthwhile financially. If they take a 30 year payback period a new build needs to bring in an extra £25m a year vs a rebuild. If a new build has an extra 10,000 seats, each seat has to delivery an extra £2,500 per year in profit. Don’t expect any cheap seats!

Decent analysis but why does he say the same thing over and over, could have been 2 minutes not 10

Not surprised La liga not committing, Barcelonas accountants will be dead against given how busy the heir summer is already

Let’s hope the bald fraud sticks around for as long as possible. The standard at the top looks high this year and Chelsea are in a better shape so be helpful if Man Utd implode in their place

He doesn’t mean it, it’s another dig at Arteta. If they get beat and it’s in March he’d be horrid or if he considered Newcastle title rivals. He’s an excellent manager and that includes using press conferences for the mind games they all try.

Sandro to come off the bench and sort it out after 55mins

My guess is Chelsea have done something novel with wages. It’s widely reported their salaries are low, sub £100k. That hasn’t made much sense as why would a player being signed for 50m agree to that. I reckon they’ve done something with future transfer fees or something that boosts the cash the players get. For example if he’s sold before 2033, maybe Chelsea have to pay up his entire contract in full. Then for him adding a few years is guaranteeing more money like a higher salary, but he has to wait for it tl;dr Chelsea have found a new wheeze (or think they have)